Abstract
Pretrial reform efforts have facilitated earlier release of pretrial defendants, raising potential concerns about an increase in failure to appear (FTA) rates. Prior research has shown mixed, but generally positive, effectiveness of court notification strategies to reduce FTAs; however, to our knowledge, no study has examined this strategy for defendants released prior to charge filing. We conducted a retrospective, quasi-experimental investigation of the effectiveness of collecting contact information at the time of jail intake relative to practice as usual (i.e., court-based data collection and notification) on FTA outcomes. Participants were 527 pretrial defendants (205 intervention; 322 control) who received early release from jail between April 2018 through March 2019. Results showed jail-based notification was not associated with reduced likelihood of an FTA. However, the effect of jail-based notification on FTA was moderated by time to initial hearing, suggesting that jail-based collection of contact information may reduce FTA rates for initial hearings if the hearings are conducted in a reasonable timeframe following release. Our findings suggest a need for more research on court notification strategies overall and closer attention to the accessibility of notifications in the context of pretrial reform efforts.
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Data availability
Data are not publicly available due to participant privacy concerns. However, all statistical output files are available upon request.
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The authors used STATA to analyze the data. This code is available upon request.
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The research leading to these results received funding from George Mason University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
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Evan M. Lowder and Chelsea M.A. Foudray led the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Chelsea M.A. Foudray and Evan M. Lowder. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Chelsea M.A. Foudray, Spencer G. Lawson, and Evan M. Lowder. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Foudray, C.M.A., Lawson, S.G. & Lowder, E.M. Jail-Based Court Notifications to Improve Appearance Rates Following Early Pretrial Release. Am J Crim Just 48, 656–676 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-022-09676-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-022-09676-7